Ryan Murphy is Netflix’s first ever $300 million man.
The streamer has poached the prolific producer from his longtime 21st Century Fox perch via a blockbuster (and unprecedented) five-year deal valued at, yep, $300 million, per The New York Times. The pact, which takes effect in July, calls for Murphy to produce new series and films exclusively at Netflix.
The news comes two months after the Walt Disney Company announced that it was acquiring a majority of 21st Century Fox — a quasi-merger that Murphy recently admitted made him nervous. (At the Television Critics Association winter press tour last month, he recalled nervously asking Disney’s boss Robert A. Iger, “Am I going to have to put Mickey Mouse in American Horror Story?”)
“This history of this moment is not lost on me,” Mr. Murphy said in a statement. “I am a gay kid from Indiana who moved to Hollywood in 1989 with $55 in savings in my pocket, so the fact that my dreams have crystallized and come true in such a major way is emotional and overwhelming to me.”
Murphy’s current TV offerings, including Fox’s just-renewed 9-1-1 and the FX anthology dramas American Horror Story, American Crime Story and FEUD, will not be impacted by the Netflix deal. His forthcoming drama Pose will similarly stay put at FX. “I am honored and grateful to continue my partnership with my friends and peers at Fox on our existing shows,” Murphy noted.
Murphy — who already has two projects in the Netflix pipeline (including a Nurse Ratched prequel series starring Sarah Paulson) — is the latest A-list showrunner to get snapped up by Netflix. In August, the streamer coaxed Shonda Rhimes away from ABC in a four-year deal reportedly worth upwards of $100 million.
